ETHOLOGY. 511 



perimcnt as an authentic exhibition of the eflecls flowing from given 

 causes. No one wlio lias sufficiently refletted on education is i^Ml(>- 

 rant of this truth; and whoever has not, will fuid it most instructivfly 

 illustrated in the writings of Rousseau and Hclvetius on that great 

 subject. 



Under this impossibility of studying the laws of the formation of 

 character by experiments purposely contrived to elucidate them, there 

 remains the resource of simple observation. But if it be impossible to 

 ascertain the inHuencing circumstances with any approach to complete- 

 ness, even when we have the shaping of them ourselves, much more 

 impossible is it when the cases are further removed from our observa- 

 tion, and altogether out of our control. Consider tin- diiliculty of the 

 veiy first step — of ascertaining what actually is the character of the 

 individual, in each particular case that we examine. There is hardly 

 any person living, concerning some essential part of whoso character 

 there are not differences of opinion even amotig his intimate acfjuaint- 

 ance : and a single action, or conduct continued only for a short time, 

 goes a very little way indeed towards ascertaining it. We can only 

 make our observations in a rough way, and en maasc ; not attempting 

 to ascertain completely, in any given instance, what character has been 

 formed, and still less by what causes ; but only observing in what state 

 of previous circumstances it is found that certain marked mental (piali- 

 ties or deficiencies oftcncst exist. These conclusions, besides that they 

 are mere approximate generalizations, deserve no reliance even as 

 such, unless the instances are sufficiently numerous to eliminate not 

 only chance, but every accidental circumstance in which a number of 

 the cases examined may happen to have resembled one another. So 

 numerous and various, moreover, are the circumstances which form 

 individual character, that the consequence of any particular combina- 

 tion is hardly ever some definite and strongly marked character, always 

 found where that combination exists, and not otherwise. What is ob- 

 tained, even after the most extensive and accurate observation, is mere- 

 ly a comparative result ; as for example, that in a given number of 

 Frenchmen, taken indiscriminately, there will be found more persona 

 of a particular mental tendency, and fewer of the contrary tendency, 

 than among an equal number of Italians or English, similarly taken ; 

 or thus : of a hundred Frenchmen and an equal number of Englishmen, 

 fairly selected, and arranged according to the degree in which they 

 possess a particular quality, each number, 1, 2, 3, &c., of the one series, 

 wall surpass in that quality the corresponding number of the other. 

 Since, therefore, the comparison is not one of kinds, but of ratios and 

 degrees; and since in proportion as the difl'crences are slight, it re- 

 quires a greater number of instances to eliminate chance; it cannot 

 often happen to any one to know a sufficient luimber of cases with tho 

 accuracy requisite for making tho sort of comparison last mentioned ; 

 less than which, however, would not constitute a real induction. Ac- 

 cordingly there is hardly one current opinion respecting the characters 

 of nations, classes, or descriptions of pei-sons, which is universally ac- 

 knowledged as indisputable.* 



* The most favorable cases for making such approximate gpncraHzationii are what may 

 be termed collective instances ; where we are fortunately enabled to see the whole class 

 respecting which we are inquiring, in action at once ; anil, from the qualitieH displayed by 

 the collective body, arc able to judge what must bo the qualities of the majority of the in- 



